Stray Leaves
by Black Belladonna
Summary: When Kakashi got his new team he thought it would be the same thing. He'd test them, they'd fail. But Team 7 has decided to throw out all his preconceptions. adopted from Flying Magic Snake


**Arc 1: Suspicions**

**Chapter 1: Team 7**

~~~~~)黒いベラドンナ(~~~~~

When a jounin received a genin team, there were certain procedures to be followed. First, the academy instructors profiled the prospective genins. This was done over the course of the year, to account for the changing moods of the pre-teens.

Then they sent these profiles to the Hokage, along with recommendations for pairing teammates. It was up to the Hokage, however, to finalize the teams and assign jounin instructors. Normally the Hokage kept them the same, trusting the teachers to know what's best for the students. Rarely though he would modify, seeing something that didn't make sense to the teachers until years later when the thought about it.

Finally, at the end of the paperwork chain, the jounins received the student profiles and began the arduous task of mentally preparing themselves to deal with the adolescent brats bristling with badly concealed weaponry.

Needless to say, the jounins felt that they received the short end of the stick in the deal. And Hatake Kakashi was no exception.

To be fair, Kakashi had known this was coming. It was common knowledge that the Uchiha heir would need someone experienced with Uchihas to train him, and Kakashi was the only one who understood how to fight with the Sharingan. Still, Kakashi wasn't keen on the idea of having another team. Especially one that would be depending entirely on him for protection until they got the basics down.

Kakashi had watched his old team die one by one. He was not interested in watching it again.

His reluctance only deepened as he carefully memorized the profiles. While it was true that genin fresh out of the academy were generally weak fighters and teammates, it seemed like he had been stuck with the absolute dregs.

Uchiha Sasuke, the top of the class genius that the Council saw as a chance to gain a controllable Uchiha clan, was a loner consumed by revenge. Although Haruno Sakura had been just below Sasuke in the bookwork, she no particular talents in the field and had been drafted into the team because she was exactly in the middle of the class.

And of course, there was Naruto.

Out of all the genins, Naruto was the one Kakashi dreaded seeing the most. Not because Naruto was the Kyuubi vessel. Not because Naruto was an infamous prankster. Not because Naruto was the "eternal dead last" of the academy.

Naruto was Minato-sensei's son. A son that Kakashi had never attempted to contact, despite the fact the boy had no family, friends, or support of any kind.

Kakashi was not certain that he could face that. But these were his Hokage's orders, and it was his job to see them through.

He steeled himself for the worst.

~~~~~)黒いベラドンナ(~~~~~

Based on the profiles, Kakashi had a pretty good idea of how his students would react to each other the first day. Sasuke was a loner like he had been and would probably be loftily ignoring the other two. Sakura was like Rin and would probably be lecturing Naruto for whatever Obito-like thing he had done to irritate her. The parallels between his old team and this new one would have been funny if they weren't so bloody frightening.

In any case, he was prepared for a disaster the minute he walked into that classroom. Heaven knew that the members of Team Minato had nearly killed each other when they were introduced to each other. Kakashi did not have high hopes for his own team.

Taking a deep breath, Hatake Kakashi pushed open the door exactly three hours and fifty-two minutes late.

Silence.

With the infamous Uzumaki Naruto in the room, Kakashi had been expecting some sort of childish prank. The profiles had stressed that Naruto desperately sought attention, generally by acting the class clown. With that in mind, there should have been at least a chalkboard eraser stuck in the door or something.

Instead, Kakashi found himself staring into the moderately interested faces of his genins, who were clustered together near the windows. Naruto was slouched over his desk, looking bored out of his mind. This instantly set Kakashi on edge. The absence of an obvious prank meant one of two things: either Naruto's profile was wrong or Naruto had a very elaborate prank set up.

The former was an unfortunate possibility. The teachers were very good at creating detailed profiles of the children, but they had been known to let unstable ninja through unnoticed. Uchiha Itachi was the most infamous, and Mizuki was another recent example. In addition, almost all of the academy instructors were old enough to remember the Kyuubi incident, which added to the possibility of malicious sabotage to the profiles. In fact, Kakashi had noticed that aside from the comments of one Umino Iruka, who was ruthlessly fair in his assessments of all three genins, the teachers tended to fawn over Sasuke, disparage Naruto, and tactfully ignore Sakura.

But despite the fact that Naruto's profile had obviously tried to make the kid look worse than he really was, Kakashi still felt that the latter option, an elaborate prank, was more likely. You didn't gain a village-wide reputation as a nearly uncatchable prankster by doing nothing, even if the village didn't like you.

Kakashi realized with a twinge of discomfort that his students were waiting for him to make the first move. Yet another thing that didn't fit their profiles. Sasuke, perhaps, would have remained stoically silent, but both Sakura and Naruto were listed as talkative enough to have said something by now.

"Yo," Kakashi said, breaking the silence. The genin nodded politely, but still said nothing. Kakashi decided that he really needed time to reassess these kids. "Meet me on the roof in one minute," he said, and used the replacement jutsu to teleport to the roof.

Instantly, pandemonium broke loose. Kakashi's foot snagged a tripwire, a cloud of shuriken shot towards him, and a low-level genjutsu began wreaking havoc with his sense of balance. Kakashi twisted away from the shuriken. He quickly performed a seal and threw off the genjutsu, wondering how on earth Naruto managed one when his profile said that he was hopeless with the subject.

Kakashi looked up and saw a fireball heading right at him. _Ah_, he thought, _I understand._

The fireball exploded.

~~~~~)黒いベラドンナ(~~~~~

The trio didn't even have the decency to pretend to be innocent at the sight of their charred teacher. They were sitting across from Kakashi, Naruto grinning outright and Sasuke and Sakura flanking the boy, both radiating amusement.

Kakashi shook his head at them. "What," he asked, "possessed you to attack your jounin-sensei the first day you met him?"

"Well, you see, Sensei," Sakura began.

"When we heard that our sensei would be the great Hatake Kakashi," Sasuke continued.

"We wanted to make a good first impression." Naruto finished, beaming.

Kakashi just stared at them. Obviously, the profiles were dead wrong. The one thing they had stressed, even Umino Iruka, was that these three would not work together unless forced to.

But Naruto had directed a prank that he could not possibly have pulled off without extensive teamwork with his teammates. Moreover, Sasuke and Sakura had agreed to the prank and cooperated under Naruto's direction to pull it off.

All of which blatantly contradicted the profiles. Kakashi sighed. He would have to start entirely from scratch to gather his intel on these kids.

"You know, you're not genin yet," Kakashi said finally, noting that none of them looked surprised at this. "You have to pass a final exam with a sixty-six percent rate of failure."

Naruto nodded. "We'll pass any old test you throw at us, Kakashi-sensei!"

_Interesting, _Kakashi thought. Neither Sasuke nor Sakura had said much yet. That meant that Naruto was their leader, or at the very least, spokesperson. Which was odd. What had Sasuke and Sakura seen in Naruto that had garnered their support so completely?

Out loud, he drawled. "I have no doubt that you will. Which is why we're skipping the test." _Ah, a reaction! _Kakashi thought gleefully, finally drawing some surprise out of the genin. "The point of the test is to drill teamwork into you. However, given that you've already collaborated on this... prank, I see no reason to waste time with it."

He stood and looked over the now official genin. "Welcome to Team Seven," Kakashi said, "Be at the bridge at six o'clock tomorrow morning." He disappeared, feeling intensely grateful to get away from the kids.

Kakashi had a lot of thinking to do in order to be prepared for them tomorrow, after all.

* * *

AN: This story was adopted from Flying Magic Snakes so the first chapters will mostly be what he/she wrote. If you want to know anything about the story check out my profile. It will have information on the story. If anything is not there feel free to ask.


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